Botany of Desire

Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye-View of the World by Michael Pollan, 2001

Pollan is known for his books on the food industry and plants.  I read In Defense of Food in 2011 and found Pollan to be an interesting character.  Botany of Desire reinforces the notion of Pollan.  He is not so much a scientist as much as he is a really intelligent gardener.

Pollan uses 4 plants: apple, tulip, marijuana, and potato.  Each of those represents a desire: sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control.  You learn a good bit about Johnny Appleseed, Holland, the War on Drugs, genetic engineering, and other interesting tidbits.  You also learn a good bit about the weaknesses of American agriculture and the direction is heading.  This book is part history lesson, part biology, and part political treastie.

It’s not bad.  It’s not great.  It’s decent.  That is how I would call it.  It drags at parts and will make you laugh at others.  I would recommend this book to the right crowd.  I will leave it up to you to determine what the right crowd is.

Keith L Greenawalt

Scorpion Down

Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon : The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion by Edward Offley, 2007

This book follows in the footsteps of such Cold War era submarine sagas as Red Star Rogue and All Hands Down, which is also about the Scorpion.  It traces the sinking of the USS Scorpion, a nuclear powered attack submarine, in the Atlantic in May 1968.  According to the US Navy, the Scorpion sank for reasons unknown.  According to Offley, the sub was sank by a Soviet torpedo.  The evidence he presents points to a cover-up, a secret search, top secret spy missions, and top secret technology like SOSUS.

I am not sure what to make of this.  Certain sub stories from the Cold War seem to invite controversy.  The sinking of the USS Tresher in 1963 and the Scorpion in 1968, plus the loss of several Soviet subs, all seem to be shrouded in controversy.  The game of cat and mouse that the two super-powers played underwater led to rumors of rammings and close calls for many years.

Aside from the regular underwater activity, the US Navy and CIA took part in secret operations to keep an eye on the sunken subs.  The Glomar Explorer is known to have recovered all or parts of a Soviet sub and Richard Ballard, famous discoverer of the Titanic, also kept secret tabs on the Scorpion and Thresher.

I am not sure what to make of this book.  It’s not an unbelievable story and the evidence is there that points to a Soviet sub sinking the Scorpion.  Most cover-ups will eventually be uncovered-up.  If nothing else, Scorpion Down is a very complete (long) recounting of everything (long) that led up to and after the sinking.

Keith L Greenawalt

A Short History of Nearly Everything

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, 2003

Bill Bryson is a great author.  He is.  I say that after reading two of his titles.  He has a sense of humor that is very matter of fact, yet still very subtle.  He’s not riotously funny.  He’s just funny.  He is also highly entertaining and informative and he makes things accessible.  I can’t say I truly understand science beyond some of the basics, but it is entertaining none the less.

The points that really stick are the ones that shock and surprised me.  For example, the point that we are all made of some of the atoms from William Shakespeare is awesome!  The idea that I am lucky to be here because none of my forebears was eaten or fell in a hole is sobering.  The idea that we aren’t looking at stars as they are today, but as they are hundreds to thousands of years ago makes me scratch my head.  All of these ideas make sense, but you just don’t think about them.

Another point that makes me think are some of the questions that we cannot answer.  While science agrees on some things, the things we cannot agree on shock me.  I mean this beyond an evolution vs. creation debate, I mean this in a sense of we really don’t know what is out in space.  We don’t know how either we or the universe exactly got here.  What we don’t know is perhaps the most telling.

I would recommend this book and anything by Bill Bryson to anyone!

Keith L Greenawalt

The Civil War Dictionary

The Civil War Dictionary by Mark Boatner, 1991

This is my go to reference for anything Civil War.  It is possibly the best single volume resource I have seen for the minutiae of the conflict that I have seen.  There are descriptions of battles, biographies of commanders and important figures, and histories of unites.  It’s not something you are going to sit down and read cover to cover, but it is something to have on hand if you are reading another title on the Civil War.

Keith L Greenawalt

Allegiance

Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War by David Detzer, 2002

This is an excellent book on the earliest of days of the Civil War.  When Confederate militia opened fire on the United States fort in the middle of Charleston Harbor, they ignited a firestorm that last for four years and cost much blood and treasure.  Fort Sumter was the opening shots of the Civil War.

The fort never really stood a chance.  It’s small garrison left Fort Moultrie in the middle of a December night and snuck past Southern patrol boats to the Fort in the middle of the harbor.  Efforts and negotiations to resupply the fort amounted to nothing.  So, ringed on three sides by Confederate batteries and low on supplies, Major Robert Anderson and his men survived as best they could under the circumstances.

Allegiance is an excellent addition to any Civil War library and I highly recommend it to anyone!

Keith L Greenawalt

A Charming Field for an Encounter

A Charming Field for an Encounter: the Story of George Washington’s Fort Necessity by Robert Alberts, 1975

This is a National Park Service publication that is sold at Fort Necessity.  It’s a relatively short account of the events at Great Meadows in 1754, although I must admit that I think that it is not as good as Blooding at Great Meadows by Alan Axelrod.  The National Park Service publications are usually pretty good and worth every penny.

Keith L Greenawalt

World War II in Their Own Words

World War II in Their Own Words: An Oral History of Pennsylvania’s Veterans by Brian Lockman and Dan Cupper, 2005

This is a companion book to a series on the Pennsylvania Cable Network (PCN) that profiled and interviewed Pennsylvania’s military veterans.  Lockman is an on-air personality and President and Dan Cupper is an author that I am mostly familiar with through his railroad books.  The stories that the veterans tell are good and this project as a whole is very much worth the effort.  We are losing World War II vets at an higher and higher rate.  We need to capture these stories while we can.

Keith L Greenawalt